Cursed Dance
by Nature9000
Summary: Doomed to an uncertain fate, Beck struggles to accept a decision made which impacted so many of his fellow students and the staff of Hollywood Arts. When Sikowitz decides to relive the experience through an elaborate play and dance routine, Beck begins to resign himself and accept their fate. Is it as bleak as it appears, or is there a way to be free of this curse once and for all?


Cursed Dance

Disclaimer: Don't own Victorious

A/N: This is inspired by _Thriller_. It also serves as a prologue for a story that will be coming later which I hope you'll enjoy.

* * *

-CURSED-

"Halloween is coming up again!" Sikowitz danced about the room with a bright and cheery tone in his voice, but watching the man discuss the coming holiday made Beck cringe. He turned his head over his head and looked to Jade and his friends. Even Damian, sitting in the back of the room, was glaring at Sikowitz with his cold and lonesome eyes.

Tori raised her hand, catching the teacher's attention. "Why isn't anyone excited about it?" Beck crossed his arms and turned up the left corner of his mouth. He leaned forward and tapped his fingertips together between his knees.

Sikowitz started to say something, but frowned as Beck answered her question "There are a lot of people that go to school here who hate the holiday. He's just trying to make something good out of a bad time." Tori twisted around in her chair and Sikowitz dropped his arms to his sides. Beck swept his hand through his hair and turned his eyes up to the man. "What's the plan this year?"

"Now take it with a grain of salt, Beck." Sikowitz lifted his hands and shook his fingers in the air. "Thriller." Beck's heart sank as a feeling of horror shot through him. "I've selected a large group of students to lead a Halloween dance party." His eyes widened and his hands started to tremble.

"That is the worst Halloween idea you've had yet. No offense."

"Even I've accepted the circumstances," Damian muttered. The other students in the room looked at him, their eyes gazing for a long minute before they shifted their heads away from him. He rolled his eyes and turned them onto Beck. "May as well get used to it at this point."

Tori furrowed her brow and hung her elbow over the top of her chair. "What is he talking about?" Not wanting her to know anything, despite that no many could believe their circumstances anyhow, he instantly dismissed her question.

"Nothing." Beck turned his eyes towards his feet and tensed the muscles in his arms. "A Thriller dance, Mr. Sikowitz?" Hollywood Arts did not have a lot of students in attendance, due to the legacy the school had and the tragedy suffered twenty years before. Of the one hundred and eighty students in attendance, and fifty faculty members, forty-five people at the school made an effort to stay hidden on Halloween night.

It didn't sound like much, but for those handful of people, it was an enormous matter. There were certain things that came to pass among this small group.

"Oh." Sikowitz looked around at his class and called out to a small few, including Tori. "Would you all step outside for a moment." Tori raised an eyebrow and Beck looked up, watching as she and the remaining classmates left. Damian, Beck, Jade, Andre, and Robbie were among those who remained.

"I kind of agree with Beck," Rex blurted. Sikowitz leaned back against his desk, grasping the edges with his hands.

"I'm only saying that there are so many of us who hide in the dark. Every year." His eyes glistened in the sunlight and his shoulders fell. "And Damian, you are correct, what is the point of just dwelling on what we couldn't change?"

Damian growled in response. "Maybe things would have been different had he kept his big mouth shut." Beck winced as Damian's words pierced him. The other classmates murmured their agreements while Beck's closest friends kept quiet.

"Enough!" Jade barked. "He was only trying to help. If he knew what would happen, well…none of us would be here." She fell silent and Beck scoffed. After a few seconds Jade turned her glare towards Damian and flared her nostrils. "But if it wasn't for _you-_" Damian straightened himself and sliced his hand through the air.

"Oh save it!" Beck shrank in his seat as Damian's voice shook the classroom. "If I knew this was what was waiting on the other side, I would probably have found a different way."

"Why the hell did you get so crazy anyway? I know with what happened to Sinjin, but still that doesn't explain how you can get so insane."

"You say I'm the insane one, but you're all still friends with him." Beck winced once again when Damian pointed his greenish, cracked fingernail at him. "And he's the one responsible for all forty five of us still where we are. So which one of us is worse? You tell me."

"At least Beck admits he fucked up." Jade grabbed Beck's hand and narrowed his eyes. "I loved him before and I love him now, and there's nothing that will ever change that." Beck's heart lifted up from the muck and he started to smile as his friends all agreed.

"Beck's a rocking guy," Andre replied patting Beck on the shoulder. "He was my first friend when we moved here from that racist town. I'll stand beside him, even if I rot first." Damian rolled his eyes and a cocky smirk flashed on Andre's face. He was always trying to make the situation better than it was, and Beck appreciated that about him.

Robbie leaned back and moved his right ankle up to his left knee. "Sure he's never been one to keep quiet when he should, but hey, when he's trying to do the right thing…he's trying. I guess there's a reason the call us the breakfast club of the bunch, eh Beck?" He chuckled and moved his hand to his side, groaning as a sharp pain shot through him. "The point being, Damian, we all need to stick together."

"Sikowitz is right," Cat blurted, "We're all going to turn to dust eventually." She moved her fingers slowly through her vibrant red hair and closed her eyes, whining softly. "It's…better not to dwell on that, and just enjoy what time we have."

Sikowitz stood fully and spun his finger in the air. "Exactly." The class turned to him and Beck crossed his arms. "So this one night, let them see. Let them all see without knowing."

Beck still remained skeptical over whether it was a good idea, especially since there were so many people. "I don't know Mr. Sikowitz. Aside from our own families, who have pretty much all gone insane…nobody else knows. A lot of people in the town know what happened that year, and many people have seen the pictures. We still look like that, to each other, but Halloween night?"

Sikowitz shook his arms forward and rubbed his chin while moving forward a couple steps. "I suppose you could all hide away and feel sorry for yourselves like every year. That's one thing you could do." Beck raised an eyebrow as his teacher whisked his hand from his beard and wagged his eyebrows. "Or you can, for one night, in a performance where everyone is certain makeup artists are behind everything, you can enjoy yourself and forget about this little predicament of ours."

"Ugh." His stomach rolled as bile started to creep up. He looked towards Jade with a sad smile and closed his eyes. "Fine. Who's the lead?"

"Why you will be, Mr. Oliver." His head jerked up and his jaw fell. Sikowitz flashed a toothy grin and shrugged his shoulders. "Jade tells me that you were one of Michael Jackson's bigger fans, knew most of his songs and whatnot. I think this is a perfect role for you."

His skin started to pale and his heart crashed to a halt. "You've got to be kidding."

"Not at all!" Sikowitz clapped his hands and started to grin. "We'll all be meeting in the auditorium after school to discuss and rehearse the largest performance this school has ever seen."

On the night of the performance, Jade met with Beck backstage, startling him from behind. "This makeup itches, Beck!" He turned to her and smiled when he saw how great of a job the makeup artist had done.

"You're beautiful." Jade was like a vision of the past, practically glowing with life and color. Her skin held a smooth appearance and her hair shimmered beneath the lights. "It's like the makeup artist knew…"

"She was one of the faculty members at the time, Beck. Of course she knew." Jade folded her arms and glanced off to the right. After a second, she let out a laughter. "Tori's in shock, still, that Sikowitz wouldn't let her have a part in this."

"I can't imagine why." He rolled his eyes and looked at the stage, then to the audience. "Though he could have if he really wanted." A lump formed in his throat as he studied the audience with a sense of fear that, for the first time in a long time, was beginning to take hold. "I just hope there's no one in the audience that would see through this ruse of his."

"Doubt it, Beck. Everyone thinks the makeup artist did everything." Jade scratched at her neck and groaned as a bit of makeup peeled off with her nails, and a small red spot appeared in place. "Let's get the show on the road."

"Tonight!" Sikowitz's voice was heard from the tower on set. He stood on a balcony, his clothes in tatters and his skin charred, cracked and rough like leather. His eyes looked to bulge from their sockets, and blood was caked into his hair. The audience let out gasps of shock, and Beck heard someone nearby mention how realistic the makeup looked. "On Halloween night, Hollywood Arts has prepared for you a brief play and dance routine inspired by the late, great, Michael Jackson."

Beck's shoulders fell and he dipped his head down. "Hey Jade?" As he looked back up, he felt Jade squeezing his hand for comfort. "I used to love this song and everything about it. I hate it now." He scratched at his own facial mask, ready to pull it off when the time came.

"Out of the way chumps," Damian said as he brushed past them. He looked thinner than usual, and his wounds glistened in the light. He made his way to the center of the stage and threw his head back, bellowing with a near animalistic how.

"Asthe midnight hour draws close in hand, let me take you back to a time long forgotten." Fog filled the stage and Damian seemed to vanish within. "Watch as our story unfolds before you. The lost ones." Sikowitz waved his hands in a circular motion as he bowed and backed up into the tower.

"Good luck," Jade whispered. Beck closed his eyes and moved onto the stage, holding his breath as the fog began to itch on his body.

"Mr. Reaper." Beck spoke his line and closed his fingers into his palm, hissing as the words fell from his lips and fresh tears welled up at his cheekbone. "Spare all of us, please. Give us a second chance, we're too young, it's too soon." His eyes drifted to the front row of the audience as spotlights lit up behind him.

His throat constricted and his heart throbbed as his quivering eyes fell onto Sinjin in the front row. Damian spoke behind him, his voice deep and angry, and his form was like that of a shadow.

"I will grant your plea, but your souls are forever mine."

Jade rushed onto the stage and threw herself into his chest. He moved his arms around her waist as her hand gripped his shoulder firmly. "What's happening? What did you do?"

His chest expanded and he swept his hand through his hair. "I gave us another chance to live."

"No!" Damian's voice bellowed. The fog settled and several people stood with rashes, cracks and decay running along their bodies. Jade let out a gasp as the group moved towards them. "You are cursed your souls cling to your dying body and it will slow the process of decay, but when your time comes….I will be here, forget not my name. Ahriman."

"Ahriman? No. Where are you!"

"I am everywhere, but you do not see." There was a sinister laugh and Jade erupted with a shrill scream as the people moved towards them without limping. They were not zombies, rather Beck hated the way the media hyped up the living dead. These people were cursed, all of them.

"The reaper. The reaper, he cursed us. He cursed us all!" Jade took a step back and lifted a trembling hand over her mouth as everyone stared at her. "But not us, right? Me and you…we're safe?"

Beck's back was turned towards her, a part of the act. "I'm sorry..." He bowed his head and reached for his face. Jade's breath caught in her throat. The facial mask crumpled in his fingers and he tore it away with a painful shout.

As the music played, he turned to her and listened to the shock of the audience. Jade's eyes widened and her mouth opened for a scream, but nothing came. The others on stage walked towards Beck, each staring at Jade.

"No! Not you!" Beck turned his head, watching as she ran, only to trip on the stage. She fell to her hands and threw her head up, shrieking as Cat made her way towards her. The girl's head was tilted to the right and blood seemed to protrude from a hole in her throat. "Cat? Oh god!"

"You're one of us." Robbie and Andre pulled Jade to her feet. Beck turned fully as they carried Jade to him. When she stopped struggling, her eyes locked with his and a pant fell from her lips.

_Darkness falls across the land, the midnight hour is close at hand. Creatures crawl in search of blood to terrorize the neighborhood. And whosoever shall be found without the soul for getting down must stand and face the hounds of hell and rot inside a corpse's shell..._

Beck caressed Jade's cheek and leaned forward, kissing her lips. An evil laugh ripped through the sky as Jade's makeup melted briefly to reveal her own rashes. As he leaned back, his hand slipped into hers and the instrumental played once more for everyone to perform the legendary dance.

"Dance," Sikowitz remarked, "Dance until you breathe your last breath of air. Dance until the reaper returns for us and we too shall face the final curtain!" What seemed to shock the audience most was that they managed to choreograph the dance almost exactly with that of Michael Jackson's original video.

The following day Beck and the group walked with Tori through the streets of LA. The sun warmed his face, yet he still felt cold. Tori was carrying on about the play and how real everything seemed, but he could hardly pay any mind. "I still wish I could have been a part of that. Trina says I shouldn't have to be a part of everything the school does, but still…It would have been nice."

"Overstatement," Beck remarked callously. Tori put her hands to her hips and slanted her eyes at him. "So I didn't see your sister there. Did she not want to see the play?"'

"No, she says she can't stand the school for some reason. Even Dad doesn't like it, so the two of them went down to the shooting range for a few hours. She's turning eighteen, and Dad wants her to learn to shoot a gun. She already knows a form of martial arts, so I don't see why he feels the need to teach her how to shoot."

"Not everything's about you," Jade laughed. Tori rolled her eyes at the joke and shrugged.

"I guess not. Though, I've never really been that into Michael Jackson." Her nose crinkled and Beck's eyebrows shot up. "I prefer more real artists like Lady Gaga, Beyonce…"

"You're kidding me right?" He crossed his arms and scoffed loudly. "Those aren't real artists. They're like Miley Cyrus, all they know how to do is dance around naked on the stage because their bodies are probably better than the song they're singing."

"That's not true! They've got some good music."

"Key word there is 'some'." In front of them, a woman was walking out of a shop with the name _Mystique_. The woman was tall and had a dark complexion. Her eyes matched her raven hair, and her purple dress flowed out like that of Morticia  
Adams. He paused as her eyes turned onto him and her lips curled into a broad smile.

"Ah it's you from the play last night. Grand performance." He stopped in his tracks and the others turned to the woman's haunting voice. "I am Janan, the mystic here at the shop. I wish to speak to you…" He hesitated to respond, but nobody else was saying anything, so he stepped bravely forward to talk to this strange woman.

"Why?"

"Let's just say, I know about your predicament. Come with me, if you please."

"I will, but um…" He looked over his shoulders and cleared his throat. "You guys stay out here while I see what this is." There was something strange and inviting about this woman, but he couldn't place his finger on what it was. Not willing to throw the others into any sort of danger, he made sure they stayed there while following her into her shop. "So…Janan, is it? You liked the performance?"

He nearly tripped over an odd display on the ground. All around him were strange objects and smells that made him want to flee the store. Still, there wasn't much that surprised him anymore.

"It was grand, but painful. You must feel hopeless and alone. But there is a way out, cursed one." His heart stopped as the woman's eyes drifted back to him. "That is correct, I know of the great tragedy that befell you and forty-four other people within the halls of Hollywood Arts twenty years ago."

"So someone did recognize us?" He clenched his fists as the woman started to laugh.

"More people probably recognize than you realize, but they say nothing because they do not believe." The mystic reached over and slid her thumb across a bright red rash on his forehead. "You are certainly not the first to be cursed by a demon disguised as a reaper, and you certainly will not be the last. However, you and those cursed by your reaper can be free to reside in the brilliant clouds of the spiritual world."

"Free from this rotting body?" Beck spread his arms out and chuckled hopefully. "Let's say I believe you. What's the way out?"

"You must find someone that can sense, that can truly sense." He leaned back as Janan walked towards the counter. "By that, I mean one who can see the death that is all over you."

He knew some like that, for instance Andre's grandmother had gone crazy because she was able to see his decaying form. Most of their relatives didn't understand how they could still be alive, and so many had gone nuts over it. "Andre's grandma is capable of seeing what most can't."

"Ah but therein lies the tricky part. For that could just mean that she is close to death herself." He moved his hand up over his chest and glanced at the door, frowning as he thought of his friend. "One that can truly sense death has a gift that comes only from birth. They may see things but are not aware until they near their eighteenth birthday. These people are those who can be considered 'mediums'."

"You mean the fake people out for money?"

"Oh there are those who are the real deal, by dear." Janan swept her fingers through her bangs, causing a flickering motion in her eyes as her hair passed by them. "These are those who are born from death." His body jerked and a shiver ran down his spine as a cloud of confusion suffocated him.

"Care to explain? Born from death?"

"For thousands of years people have perished only to meet a demon in disguise as a reaper. They plead for another chance, as you have done for your friends, only to find themselves cursed as a corpse. Their death covers them and they decay for years until the reaper returns to claim their soul, but this decay-as you have discovered-is not visible among the living."

"Right." He walked forward and took a seat at a dusty looking table. Beck folded his forearms on the surface and leaned forward, studying the woman with great skepticism. "Go on."

"These people are not to be referred to as 'zombies' by way the media portrays them, however they are the living dead. They do not feast off brains-"

"Of course not. That's a pathetic assumption." He was often hungry, and when he was hungry, he ate actual food. "We're almost as alive as if we never died in the first place."

"Exactly. That said, organs work, which means the reproductive organs work. I have only seen instances, however, in which the living can impregnate the dead, or the dead can breed with the living." Beck's eyes grew large and his hand drifted up over his mouth.

He didn't think it was possible, and certainly it wouldn't be possible for dead and dead to get pregnant. He and Jade had sex every now and then, and she never once said anything about pregnancy.

"You think only the combination of the dead and living?"

"Yes. If dead and dead were possible, I think that child would be…well, rather special in the eyes of the supernatural and the demons. They'd be alive, but probably very sickly in life, but that is beside the point."

"I understand."

"Someone born of the dead has a sense, they can-as I said-detect the dead. This gives them a gift that allow them to connect with the spiritual realm, as psychics and mediums…the real ones, dear. These mediums can free you of the curse that holds you to Earth, do you understand?"

His heart skipped a beat and he rose to his feet, thinking now of all those longing to be free. "Where might I find one of these people? How can they save us?"

Janan folded her arms and looked to the door. Beck followed her gaze and slanted his eyes. "You already know one." She couldn't mean Tori, because if that were the case, then Tori would have already 'seen' weird things that she couldn't explain.

"According to you, they're still able to see and detect things they don't understand _before_ they turn eighteen, right?"

"Yes."

"Okay…" His nostrils spread apart and he started towards the door. He was curious now who this medium was that he evidently already knew. Perhaps it was Tori, but in the back of his mind he doubted that possibility.

"Now in order for one of these people to free you, they must be at the peak of their senses. This only occurs when they are eighteen…but they must come to accept their sense, to believe in it." He twisted around to the woman and furrowed his brow as she reached for an object on her desk. "I cannot help you in the matter, though I do sense, but my touch with the spiritual realm weakens. However…find this person, make them accept the gift of sense that they have, and bring them to me. I will teach them to combat dark forces, and I will help them to free the curse that binds you against your will."

"I'll do that. Thank you." Now the issue was how to explain to the others about this new outlook. It was worth a try, he couldn't just sit around and let the guilt eat away at him. "I hope you're right, Janan."

"Have faith, you can be free."

* * *

Bound Souls is the title of the story that will come. It will come when Beacon of Hope is over (not long from now) and will be written in conjunction with the other two ongoing stories, the Royal story and Stuck in the Middle. Hope you've enjoyed the oneshot-I would like to stress however about this curse that afflicts them. They are _absolutely not zombies_, it will not be a zombie fiction, it is a simple supernatural fiction. Think the curse from Pirates of the Caribbean, if you need a visual.


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